Reliability for: Dairy calf disbudding wounds

Disbudding, a painful procedure, permanently damages the horn-bud tissue either with a hot iron (heat) or caustic paste (chemical). The resulting wounds persist for an average of 7-9 wk for hot-iron or 14-18 wk for the caustic paste method. Throughout this healing process, disbudding wounds can be characterized by their tissue composition. To create consistency among our research team with identifying these stages of healing, we have developed supporting materials. This Dryad submission contains information for evaluating observer reliability when describing disbudding wounds in dairy calves. The wound scoring system and definitions we have used in previous research are included, along with a 110-photo test containing examples of the different tissue types. These photos are intended to be used to test observer reliability before data collection begins, during data collection, or afterwards. Included are: (1) the gold standard key for comparison, (2) a blank, formatted Excel sheet for da..., , , # Reliability for: Disbudding wounds after hot iron and caustic paste disbudding

[Access this dataset on Dryad](https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.2280gb640)

These materials are intended to serve as a resource for researchers who want to score calf disbudding wound healing during future research projects. We have developed a photo test, gold standard scoring, and analysis for calculating inter observer reliability of disbudding wounds, which are all presented here. This code can be modified to calculate intra observer reliability as well.

## Description of the data and file structure

* *DisbuddingWounds241014.pdf*; This file presents the wound tissues scored after hot-iron and caustic paste disbudding in dairy calves. A total of 9 wound tissues are presented along with examples and their definitions. The reliability for identifying the presence and absence of each tissue type is evaluated in the RMD.
* *DisbuddingWoundTest.zip*; 110 photos presenting examples of wounds after hot-iron and..., , **Changes after Jul 30, 2025:** On November 6, 2025, a new version of the \"Disbudding_Wound_Test.zip\" was uploaded to Zenodo to remove a duplicate of photo 60.